I am
by Panda musume
Summary: "The rain slamming onto the roofs sound like bombs in the distant battlefield. Boom. Boom. Boom. He's sure an umbrella is being blown up somewhere." Where identity crisis is crucial for a yato. Rated T/Okikagu/Oneshot


A/N: OKAY. Yes, my notepads are exploding with story ideas right now I'm sorry but I NEED TO PUBLISH THEM even though there's so little time to write them out

Okay, so first of all I'm going to get all of my oneshots out of the way and then continue the stories that are _not_ on hiatus/discontinued. Seriously. I promise. Wavering is a story that I care too much about to give up on.

Notice: I started a new poll on what multi-chapter story I should do next. Clink on the link of my profile and please vote for the animes you want me to write about!

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN GINTAMA IT BELONGS TO SORACHI HIDEAKI

Enjoy~

* * *

I am. . .

.

.

.

He's always hated it.

They do it a lot now. Fighting in the rain, yelling and screeching and profanitizing the world together. It a horrible feeling, he thinks, because when it starts raining she'll tell him stuff that he doesn't know how to respond to, and when it's raining she'll ask questions. Plural. Not good.

Believe it or not there are actually times where Kagura is silent. Brooding and distant and void. It's like looking into a black hole, falling into a pit of nothingness and getting lost somewhere deeper than he can comprehend.

He knows she's hiding something when they spar. It's just not in her, to lie. It's also not in her to cheat, or kill, or betray someone—he knows that without a doubt. It takes a monster to know a monster, and for the hell of him, he knows that she's not one. Confused. She's just confused, is all.

The wind picks up, China girl stops her attempt in pushing back her long hair and he takes this advantage to use the sharp side of his sword against her head. But it's blocked, and something releases inside his chest when her hand sustains a tiny cut. Red—so remarkably red.

The wind continues to howl around them, swirling leaves and dirt and dust in order to create some magical barrier no one can breach. This could turn into a typhoon, he thinks, and then spares a glance at the China girl, glistening and wet and angry at the world.

He blocks her umbrella, "We should go inside."

She stops and looks at him with a dumbfounded expression, retort quick on her lips, but he won't let her say anything. He throws her umbrella onto her bench, grips her wrist in an iron hold, and prays that she doesn't break his hand. Ten seconds pass as he is dragging her, and no bones are broken. This is bad, he thinks, so he twists his head around and looks back to see her head ducked in between her shoulders and her hair glistening in the wind.

* * *

He finds them an abandoned shed in the middle of the forest. They don't go into the city of Kabukichou when she's like this; nope, she'll kill him if he does that. He'll be the harbinger of his own death, and he wants to live until he's 80, surrounded by M's and cackling around Hijikata-san's grave.

The typhoon is raging outside, and he prays that if he has to die tonight, it'll be from the typhoon rather than her.

"You know," he suddenly starts, watching as her eyes slowly raise themselves to look at his face, "Patsuan and Danna's worried for you." That earns him a dark glare as China girl lets her bangs cover her eyes. She's grown them out; her hair, her anger, her exasperation. He knows that. Oh, he _knows_.

"Shut up, Sadist." Her voice is dipped in poison and raindrops, and he doesn't breach the topic again.

The wind howls in the distance, destroying trees and grass and possibly an umbrella.

* * *

"Hey, Sougo." He whips his head around from across the room to look at her. She never calls him that in public—never does that when their alone either.

He swallows something stuck in his throat, "Hm?" This can't be good.

She stares at him, eerily silent and tired and _terrified_ , "What am I?"

Okita swallows again.

 _He doesn't know._ He really doesn't. He wants to say that he can't answer that for her, can't define her by his own standards, can't butt his head into where it doesn't belong. So instead he responds in a dry voice, "An umbrella-freak." He's careful not to say monster.

"Fuck you."

"I'll gladly take note of that," He pauses with a raised eyebrows and plays with the handle of his sword, "Anything else you want me to say about this?"

Like a spell being broken, China girl immediately flinches into silence after that, and even Okita can feel the sting in his own words. Ouch.

Baby steps, he says to himself. It's only the beginning stages. If he jumps now then she'll pounce. Chain reaction. And then boom, he's dead. Game over. Life gone. Zero. Zilch. Bye-Bye.

"We should've brought your umbrella." A peace offering.

He can't hear the bitter laugh croak from her through, but he sees the movements of her mouth, and the fire that is clinging to her hair. "Nah, I was planning to throw it away some time later. Buy myself a new one. . ."

He whistles and ignores the distant look in her eyes, "You gonna customize it yourself?"

"Yep. Old man Gengai's going to help me."

"And Danna's gonna turn it into the Neo Armstrong Cyclone Jet Armstrong Cannon."

"You flatter me."

"That wasn't flattery, Miss Piggy." He holds his hands up in a half-hearted defense. The rain slamming onto the roofs sound like bombs in the distant battlefield. _Boom. Boom. Boom._ He's sure an umbrella is being blown up somewhere.

She hums a reply. He still can't hear her over the bombs, but he can see her hair, slick with dewdrops, cascading down her back and leaving shimmering trails of stardust on the floor. It's beautiful, really, but that's not what he wants to see. He takes this moment to cheat from the corner of his eye, takes this moment to find an opening and rip it clean, past the pink lining of her cupid's bow and across her button nose and flushed cheeks and up, up, up—

" _Please."_

And then he stops. His hand outstretched and on the frontlines of battle and _this close_ to brushing away her bangs. That wicked, wicked girl.

Her eyes are probably blue behind her bangs, a bright iridescent color, blurred by trails of tears and secrets, but the rain is covering them, covering her up so that she has a moment to spare. What a shame. He never admits it out loud, but he likes them—her eyes. They're blue, and bright, and they change into different shades of everything he's discarded when he cast aside his heart and plunged his sword deep into the enemy; a symphony of stardust, stained with color and ink and passion.

He can't help her, he tells himself again. Can't butt into her business like that. That's not how it works.

"What am I?" She asks to no one in particular, a dry, bone-shuddering plea. It's frantic, as if she's on the cusp of discovering something Earth-shattering, but she loses it, like the umbrella in the battle.

"What am I?"

He merely observes this spectacle, all logic and calculations, wipes his mask of anything that may have been caught on it, and watches this girl with breathtaking eyes hitch her breath and collapse onto the floor in a pile of embers and water. He goes with her as well like dominos crashing down, one by one, as he grips her shoulders and she grips the front of his shirt, and the rain outside is roaring in tandem: Boom. Boom. Boom.

The china doll in his arms watches as he grips her cold and clammy hands and does not go anywhere near her dripping bangs. She doesn't shiver. Not one bit. The raindrops sliding down her body are a figurative thing to her. Something literal. Something real. A raw denominator dripping onto her clothes and making it look like a part of herself.

 _"What am I?"_

He wants to say so many things right now. Oh, so many things. He wants to say that she is a monster girl with a monstrous appetite and a China girl with a hell of a bite and she has red hair and iridescent eyes and a Cupid's bow for her bottom lip and a button nose and filled to the brim with passion and love and everything that's not glass, no matter how fragile she is looking right now because _she is not a Yato._

But his voice won't convey anything. She won't let him, even if he tries. He swallows all of his answers back and curses himself for being such a goddamn coward in the face of such a disaster. Because when they get back, everything will go back to normal, and the next time they fight, she'll ask the same question to him, to _herself_. Again. And again. And _again._

 _Pathetic,_ if he says so himself. He'll disregard her beauty and fire and everything that goes along with the package, but he'll never say a word on what really counts. Lips closed and tongue twisted, since she won't let him say it, because China girl is a stubborn idiot and when he asks her _why are you doing this_ , she responds with snort and a laugh and something along the lines of this:

" _I'm a woman, yes. If I can't deal with this much then I won't be able to stand next to the people in my life."_

 _Pah._ Pretty words. Just look at herself. All exposures and weaknesses and a vulnerable back against a manslayer hitokiri. He could kill her right now if he just brings his hands up just a little further. He could. _Really_. It makes him wonder, if he actually does say what his tongue is trying to make him swallow, will things change? _Yes._ Definitely. But he is a hitokiri, a manslayer. And she knows that. She has her pride, and no matter how far his voice tries to reach she'll always be a mile farther. She knows that and understands and always rejects his words no matter how low she's sunken until the rain stops.

She's not gonna be convinced, he tells himself. He can't do that. " 'S not my place to answer."

Her mouth opens, the curve of her bottom lip dips low, and he can hear a sigh of relief escape her body. The noises outside only grow worse, ringing through his ears and bombing the fields of battle. The umbrella's probably destroyed by now and salvaging their bench is a lost cause, but he never looks away from her, never makes another attempt to brush away the frontlines and see the heart of her struggle, but when he sees something slipping from under her bangs and visibly onto her left cheek, he brings his mouth against the drop and kisses it away; a compelling, kind gesture for a hitokiri, if he says so himself. But in reality, he doesn't really know anything at all.

He hates the rain.

He really, really hates it.

* * *

A/N: Okay, so for all of you children who are confused, this is a figurative thing. By figurative, I mean the usual angsty, Kagura self-identity thing going on. This is Kagura slowly losing control of her Yato side, and Sougo doesn't know what to do about that because she's too stubborn accept any help of anyone. This is Kagura at her most vulnerable, asking who she is and trying to distinguish herself: Is she human? Or is she a Yato? This is Kagura trying to figure out whether or not she'll lose to her instincts and be a cold-blooded killer like the others yatos. *coughcough* Kamui *coughcough*

In reality, this was supposed to be a fluffy drabble with Okita marveling over Kagura's appearance in the rain but whoops—that took a complete 360. . .

OKAY. Again, I am sorry for any grammatical mistakes or OOCness. Seriously. It's very OOC, especially the part with Okita kissing away Kagura's tears—so sorry. . .BUT. If there is any more mistakes then please feel free to leave a review or PM me. I only proofread once or twice so there will surely be grammatical errors and jumbled sentences—gomenasai *bows*

Til next story~


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